Got caught, drill boom, remove fittings on mast

Wed 19 May, HHN day 36: CAUGHT! Yes Sir, guilty as charged: Conspiring to dig an unauthorized hole in your beautifully manicured yacht yard. That aside, more epoxying, boom job and building more tools to remove fittings from the mast.

Up before 6am today. Starting new regime: given we are moving into very hot days, I will start early in the cool, nap in the afternoon, and work till dark. So by 6:45 I’m already clocked-in and at my workstation by the rudder.

I’m just sanding the epoxy on the rudder bearing housing when a white pickup approaches. I glance up to see it’s the yard manager. I grit my teeth, hold my breath, and give him a polite nod as he passes. I’m convinced he will stop. But no, he continues up the row then down the next and disappears. It’s the first time I have seen him in this remote corner of the yard. But phew… that was a close call.
Though, 5 minutes later he approaches again. This time I don’t look up. I hear the pickup slowing and moving behind me, then it gently passes. I’m just about to breathe again when it stops and I hear the door open.

And that is it, game over, I’ve been caught! He wanders over and assertively asks “How deep is that hole then?” I was kind of tempted to reply with my well-rehearsed lines “Hole? What hole? I see no hole. Are you missing one?” But sense prevails, and I instead turn into a whimp, groveling for forgiveness.
The yard manager gives me a professional but firm grilling, and a lecture: “If all 200 boat owners dug up my yard…” “And what if you had hit a water pipe…“ “You should have asked me first…“ etc.
The only negative possible consequence of my hole he didn’t mention was that of the clay moving and the boat sinking into the hole. He forgot that one!

Anyway, I empathetically agree to all his points, and say I am sorry as politely as I can muster. Which seems to defuse him. And finally he leaves.
Hopefully that will be it. But, if he happens to mention this to certain people in the office, the sentencing will likely be reviewed upwards. There are a few in there who already know I have a disobedient streak in me. I’m afraid I’m a Sansom, son of my father, so it was bred into me at an early age that rules and protocols do not apply to us! My two brothers are chips-off-the-old-block too – though they will never admit it!

So that’s how I started my day, on a highly exciting note. Let’s get back to maintenance.
After sanding is complete, I apply a bit more epoxy in a couple of places, and also more epoxy on the rudder stock. I had previously filled the galvanic holes, but one of them seems to have drunk the previous epoxy, still leaving a big hole.

As I apply the 2nd layer, air bubbles start coming out through the epoxy. Hmmm, just how far down into the fiber glass does this corrosion go, I wonder. And I start thinking that maybe seawater would have entered into the rudder at this point.
I later contact Hallberg-Rassy to get advise where is the lowest point I can drill a hole in the rudder, to check if there is water in there. I really hope there isn’t. But at least I can sort that out after the rudder is back in place.

I also get a very good reply from JP3. I had asked for their input regarding my bearing reinstallation plan. Pascal effectively approved it, but gave a couple of very helpful tips. Good people those JP3 guys. Can they really be French?! (sorry… but us English have been at war with France for centuries. And we still are. But it is jokes and humor that we fire at each other these days, not lead shot).

I then move to the boom. And with sunshade over me, I re-drill and re-tap the 4 holes for the vang fitting. I also refit the mainsheet fitting and the gybe preventer fitting.
Then have a think about how to better install the LED strip under the boom this time. The last strip stuck OK, but now that I have removed it, I can see it has caused some slight corrosion to the anodizing.

On the mast, I have been wanting to remove some (or all) of the fittings where the shrouds attach. Firstly to get new HDPE sheet behind the fittings, and secondly to be able to get a good look inside the mast over its full length with my endoscope.
Currently, I’ve only managed to get 3m into the mast at each end – which is the full length of my endoscope. With the shroud fitting removed, I’ll be able to get in and see all along its full internal length.

The fitting looks simple enough to remove: a bolt goes right through the mast to the same fitting on the other side, and a nut. Though the nut is not a hex head, but a flat screw driver head… a VERY big flat head screw. It needs to be a 25mm (1”) blade.
At East Coast Marine Rigging, Stephen has not got one that big either, but loans me a length of 1” bar so that I can grind down the end into a screwdriver blade shape. Back at the boat, 15 mins with the grinder and I have my improvised large screw driver.

It fits perfectly, and I use a wrench to turn it… but the bolt turns along with it. Hmmm. Oh, there is a similar nut on the other side. That means I need 2 large screw drivers! So back to the grinder to make another. Perfect. Proud of myself for making these 2 tools, I go check the fitting again.
Part of the fitting is covered by plastic and when I move it, I see there is yet another similar bolt screw arrangement, but of course it is slightly smaller and my new tool it too big for it. So back I go, yet again, to the grinder and make 2 more, slightly smaller this time.
This is a long story, but just goes to show that even an extremely simple job ends up taking way too long to do. I think I was grinding at those tools for almost 2 hours! 2 hours I had not planned for today.

Then the next hour is taken up with a phone call from the owner of HR54/1 – the first HR54 hull produced, built 1 year before Cloudy Bay. It seems my blog is hitting him hard! He is worried about all the aspects I have been finding on Cloudy Bay and he is now wondering if he should be doing the same. So to all HR54/55 owners out there: Maybe stop reading my blog, or you’ll potentially have nightmares!

Yesterday, an Amel 53 named BeBe was parked next to us. Today the owners of the Amel and I got chatting, and I was invited to help them finish their gin, before they head back off to their home in Michigan for the summer. They are the true definition of “Snow-Birds”. They fly (sail) south every winter.
I had seen them launch last November and head off to the Caribbean, and now here they are back again. I was a bit miffed hearing the wonderful winter they had down there. It seems Covid didn’t restrict them too much. Well, we will be back there next winter. Either for the whole winter or just passing through to Panama.

The gin and tonic, of course, doesn’t help my evening work plan. But I still continue till dark and slightly beyond. Now I have to be disciplined to get to bed early if I’m to get up with the birds again tomorrow. It all feels so unnatural getting up that early, I’m not a morning person. But logic says it’s the way to go on these hot days. And I only have 1 week to suffer. I can manage that!